Out of Order

The African National Congress (ANC), the political party founded by Nelson Mandela, which ended apartheid in South Africa and has ruled the country for the last thirty years, lost its parliamentary majority in elections last week. While they are still the largest party, they will now have to form a coalition with competing parties to govern. This signifies a shift for South Africa, which needs to...

Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a Manhattan state court. We run through the somewhat complex reasoning behind the crime and then analyze the political and institutional fallout.

The Financial Times reported that a deal for a new gas pipeline from Russia to China has stalled over pricing talks. China not only wants heavily subsidized domestic prices for Russia's gas, they also want only a small percentage of the total capacity. The reality is, Russia needs China, but China doesn't need Russia.

A new report cites sources close to Vladimir Putin saying he wants a ceasefire in the Ukraine war with the lines frozen at current areas of control on the battlefield. Is this true, or is there another reason this information leaked to the press?

The state of Colorado passed four new housing laws meant to address their housing shortage. There's one in particular that excites us. Tune in to find out what they did.

Over a year ago, the term "vibecession" was coined. It refers to the concurrent phenomena of a very strong U.S. economy according to all the typical measures (unemployment, GDP growth, stock market gains) and a populous that mostly thinks the economy is doing poorly. This isn't the first time we've discussed this topic, but a new poll brought us back here. So we wonder: why is th...

Two days after the inauguration of Taiwan's new president, The People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China ran joint navy and air force drills on the northern, eastern, and western sides of the island. We discuss their reasoning for these drills and how they might play into a future invasion of Taiwan by China.

After winning a unionization vote at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, the UAW sought to keep their momentum going with a win at a Mercedes plant in Alabama. However, they lost the vote, with 56% of votes going against unionizing. We discuss how it went down, and whether this will affect future unionization efforts.

Chinese businesses are facing headwinds everywhere in the world at the moment. At home, they're struggling with weak demand, as their consumer base doesn't want to spend money because of the real estate crisis and low confidence. Abroad, buyer markets like the U.S. are becoming more and more protectionist as they look to carve out space for their own manufacturers to compete on the world s...

Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran, died in a helicopter crash last week. We discuss how this affects Iran's government and politics, and whether it will have any effect on the U.S.'s posture towards the country.

Benny Gantz, the leader of Israel's centrist party, has issued demands for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet, threatening to leave the governing coalition if he does not. The demands include more concrete plans on how to secure Israeli hostages held by Hamas and how to govern Gaza.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for several leaders of Hamas and Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza. We discuss how this move leaves Israel even more isolated on the world stage, and may accelerate deglobalization by leading countries out of step with the U.S. and Israel ideologically to go their own way in other matters as well.

Russia's military has pressed its advantage in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv, as the Ukrainians await military aid from the recently passed resolution in Congress. The morale of Ukraine as a country may hinge on Kharkiv's survival.

Senator Jon Tester from Montana is facing one of the toughest re-election campaigns in the Senate this year, the fate of which could decide which party controls Congress. One crucial constituency for him is Native Americans, who make up about 6% of the population of the state. Their support for Tester is clear, but whether they will turn out to vote, is less so.

President Joe Biden recently unveiled a new swathe of tariffs on China after a yearslong review of Trump's tariffs which initiated this trade war. We discuss the effects on the economy, on the green transition, on the politics and whether any of these are at all a good idea.

We analyze the April inflation report and discuss the mixed signals it sends about the economy. Wages have increased by 3.9% over the past year, resulting in real wage gains of 0.5%. There's also a welcome decline in the cost of food at home. However, car insurance prices have significantly risen at a 21.6% annualized rate, driving inflation higher. Retail sales were flat for the month, contra...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) passed a new rule to dictate how regional transmission organizations plan, pay for, and site new developments to the grid. Transmission is one of the biggest obstacles the U.S. has in achieving its green transition goals, so this is a huge deal.

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain wrote an op-ed proposing that unions across the country align to have their contracts expire in 2028, in order to maximize labor's leverage with a general strike if management does not meet their demands. This would be the biggest move for labor we've ever seen in America, and might lurch us towards the equity of a system like the social democracies...

The U.S. dollar has recently been rising in value of late due to higher-than-hoped-for inflation in the U.S. and a continually strong economy. We discuss what this means for the U.S. and other economies around the world. ⁠Patreon⁠ with exclusive content: Patreon

At the inception of the COVID pandemic, the Trump administration instituted the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, creating subsidies for households that couldn't afford reliable internet access. The Biden administration extended those benefits in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. Now, the benefits are about to expire, and Congress will likely allow them to. We discuss why, and whether tha...

The EPA passed a new rule requiring the majority of a power plant's carbon emissions to be eliminated by 2032 at the risk of being taken off the grid. It's a big step forward in the federal government's battle against climate change.

Time Magazine recently published a long-form interview done with Donald Trump, discussing his policy ideas for a second term. There's a lot of rambling and self-adulation. Besides that, we go over some of the most interesting points to us, and whether they might actually bear out if Trump were elected. If you like our brilliant insights, you should OBVIOUSLY subscribe. If you really REALLY lik...

The Biden administration released new rules to modify the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to speed up infrastructure project approvals via multiple mechanisms. NEPA has been one of the biggest obstacles to progress in building what we need for the green transitions, as its environmental reviews often add years to projects and have not taken climate change into account up to this point. Th...

Greece's Supreme Court has ruled that the far-right Spartan party is simply a rebrand of the previous neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, and that its members are looking to circumvent the previous ban placed on that openly Hitler-loving party. Count this as a win for protecting democracy.

President Biden has rescheduled marijuana from a schedule I to a schedule III drug, a move that is long overdue but still doesn't go far enough. Schedule I had weed on the same level as heroin, while Schedule III puts it on the same level as codeine. We discuss the ramifications. If you like our brilliant insights, you should OBVIOUSLY subscribe. If you really REALLY like us, you can support t...